Lots of news. Some good and some bad. First the good.
The DFW FiberFest was a great success for me. I meet some wonderful people and other vendors. I sold much more than I anticipated. I had heard mixed reviews on this event so I wasn't sure if I wanted to be a vendor, but I am glad I tried it out. I didn't bring any of my prime angora fiber. I am saving that for me. Now I am going to spend the next 2 weeks dying and carding to catch up my inventory.
I was also able to advertise my core business, spinning pet hair. Several people brought samples of their pets fur to be spun. I even had one very nice lady bring me a big bag of her pet's hair to me at the show. We sat and discussed specifics while I spun a sample of it to take home to show her family. "Warren" is now drying in a basket. This fur is very important since he passed away several years ago.
I was so busy preparing for this show I haven't written on the rabbits at all. Two does gave birth, March 29th, each having 11 kits. So much for any fostering ideas. The ermine doe had no problems at all, but my best red doe developed a prolapsed uterus. It was awful.
She successfully had all the kits in the nest. When I checked on her in the morning she was pulling fur. I looked in on her 45 minutes later and saw she had given birth, but she had way too much blood on her and she was just sitting in the corner in distress.
I put her down since I didn't want her to suffer by slowly bleeding to death. I tried bottle feeding the kits, but I lost them all by the 5th day. I have never had success with such young kits on a bottle. I can mange a good survival rate if they are about 10 days, but not newborns.
The ermine is doing well and so are her kits. The smallest in her litter did not make it past 2 days so she is nursing 10 kits now. It looks like a nice assortment of ermines, fawns, light torts and maybe a red.
No comments:
Post a Comment